[Python-3000] Displaying strings containing unicode escapes

[Nick Coghlan]

Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
> Jim Jewett writes:
> 
>  > I realize that this is the traditional escape form, but I wonder if it
>  > might be better to just use the character names instead of the hex
>  > character codes.
> 
> That would require changing the parser, no?  Of all types, string had
> better roundtrip through repr()!

The string parser has understood Unicode names for quite some time 
(examples use 2.5.1):

 >>> print u"\N{GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA}"
α
 >>> print u"\N{GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA}"
Α
 >>> print u"\N{GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA WITH TONOS}"
Ά

Using the names gets fairly verbose compared to the hex escapes though:

 >>> u"\N{GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA}"
u'\u03b1'
 >>> u"\N{GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA}"
u'\u0391'
 >>> u"\N{GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA WITH TONOS}"
u'\u0386'

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia
---------------------------------------------------------------
             http://www.boredomandlaziness.org